The Worst is Yet to Come. The Challenges of Multiculturalism in Britain: An Examination of Over-Migration, Assimilation, and A Warning for the Future (original) (raw)
Related papers
Immigration and multiculturalism in Britain: New issues in research and policy
2002
This paper is a revised and enlarged version of a lecture delivered at Osaka University of Foreign Studies, during the course of Dr. Menski's tenure as a Visiting Professor at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. It provides a wide-ranging overview of the challenges for social policy currently being thrown up within Britain's ever more plural social order.
The Ghost in the Machine: An Overview and Analysis of British Multiculturalism
2017
As multiculturalism in the United Kingdom passes to a ‘post’ phase of existence, at least in academic and political discourse, it is important to consider the lingering impact of over fifty years of its presence in the form of Race Relations and integration measures. This article aims at a critical reassessment of the overarching strategies that have developed over the last half-century in relation to the integration of immigrants by putting the legacy of British multiculturalism into a firm historical and socio-political context; by marrying immigration and integration policies with normative models of integration in the hope of drawing a certain causality between them; and finally by highlighting the changes that have taken shape amidst the continuity of certain shared principles or frames of reference.
THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE: AN OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF BRITISH MULTICULTURALISM KAROLINA CZERSKA-SHAW
As multiculturalism in the United Kingdom passes to a 'post' phase of existence, at least in academic and political discourse, it is important to consider the lingering impact of over fifty years of its presence in the form of Race Relations and integration measures. This article aims at a critical reassessment of the overarching strategies that have developed over the last half-century in relation to the integration of immigrants by putting the legacy of British multiculturalism into a firm historical and socio-political context; by marrying immigration and integration policies with normative models of integration in the hope of drawing a certain causality between them; and finally by highlighting the changes that have taken shape amidst the continuity of certain shared principles or frames of reference. The first part of the article looks at immigration and integration policies in Britain through a historical perspective; the second section delves into the concept of integration itself and its complex manifestations in British politics and policies; finally, a critical review of the development of these policies and their 21 st century manifestations and outcomes are discussed in the third section. The analysis shows that the United Kingdom has, over the last decade, seen an ever-stronger intertwining of immigration and integration policies towards a robust civic integration approach, made evident in the introduction of citizenship and language testing schemes and strict preconditions on entry. Meanwhile, the turn in anti-discrimination legislation has been rather subtler. It has extended its reach to other areas of inequality, focusing on more pressing, or less contentious minority group support, such as women and LGBT rights, whilst retaining a measure of ethnic and national minority protection.
The Crisis of Multiculturalism in the UK: Has it Failed?
The idea of multiculturalism has been hotly debated across the UK in recent years. This article addresses the question of whether multiculturalism has failed in Great Britain based on an assessment of both sides of the debate. Considerable arguments against multiculturalism have been submitted by both academics and political figures, stating its devastating impact on social cohesion, causing social segregation, and its incompatibility with the principles of liberal democracy. This essay argues the opposite: the primary argument in this essay is that what has failed is not multiculturalism itself, but rather the understanding of it, due to the powerful negative discourse around the term embedded in multicultural policies (MCPs). The article argues that there is an urgent need for the contextual development of multiculturalism, which can lead to a variety of views. It concludes that the arguments against multiculturalism lack empirical evidence, and those arguments have been strongly influenced by the negative discourse around the idea of multiculturalism, rather than its everyday realities.
Reflections on British Multiculturalism, 1967-2014
This paper is a stand-alone reprint of Chapter 13 of my book Living with Difference Essays on Transnationalism and Multiculturalism (Grillo 2015b), which was published in a Kindle version in March 2015. Readers who are interested might like to buy a copy of the book, available from http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Difference-Essays-Transnationalism-Multiculturalism-ebook/dp/B00R487WB6/ref=sr\_1\_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1442829655&sr=1-1, price £3.84) The book brings together, in one form or another, over a dozen journal articles and book chapters written between 2000-2010. All are concerned with transnational migration and multiculturalism and the link between them. As I have observed elsewhere (Grillo 1998) I have always lived and worked where ethnic and related forms of difference have been of transparent importance, especially when connected to migration (East Africa, France, Italy, Britain, including Northern Ireland). Understanding how and why and with what implications has long been an obsession. That migration (from Italy on the one hand, Wales on the other) was an important part of my own family history no doubt had an influence, as did growing up with an Italian surname in post-World War Two Britain. The present paper documents changing attitudes towards the governance of multicultural diversity in the UK in the period 1960-present, drawing together various previously published articles (notably Grillo 2010a, 2010b, 2012a), along with extracts from other papers (published and unpublished), to survey what has been called the ‘backlash’ against multiculturalism (inter alia Vertovec and Wessendorf eds 2010).
Multiculturalism and Immigration
2012
Would this book exist if September 11, the train bombings in London and Madrid, the attacks in Mumbai, and the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh had not happened? Probably not. All the same, I am going to argue that the acts of terrorism like September 11 only amplified the sound of a tectonic shift in global economic and social structures that has been gaining strength since World War II. That shift is currently focused, in the United States and elsewhereespecially Western Europe and Japan so faron the questions of immigration: how much, how fast, from where… and then what? These questions, which fundamentally spring from a globalized and altogether unequal economy, have begun to replace the earlier questions of identity that marked the debate over multiculturalism in the 1970s and 1980s. Those identity questions remain of interest, but they were largely matters of single national societies, as is signaled by phrases like "Asian American," "Native American," "Black German," "German Turkish," "British Asian," and the like. The questions of immigration are those of global structures, structures that have been imposed upon us by rampant and increasingly globalized capitalism. Multiculturalism focused on access and integration; but these are not the primary issues of globalization and the immigration it has generated. The issue there is legitimization: whether one is, and is seen and received as, legal, legitimate, fully a citizen. The issue of multiculturalism was identity: Who are we, and who am I? The issue of immigration is integration and separation: Of what are we am Ia part, and who decides? The issue is not what constitutes an identity that needs to be respected, but what constitutes a viable political community. It is these issues I wish to discuss, and the new structures of inequality shaping this particular moment.
Current History, 2020
I n early 2018, the Windrush scandal hit the United Kingdom. Pressure from members of Parliament and Caribbean diplomats, together with a series of articles in the Guardian newspaper, revealed that black British citizens and permanent residents were being unlawfully evicted, denied medical treatment, refused entry to the UK, summarily fired, detained, and even deported because they were unable to demonstrate their citizenship status. These were members of the "Windrush Generation," who had arrived from the Caribbean between 1948 and 1971 to rebuild Britain after the Second World War, taking up low-wage jobs mainly in the National Health Service and public transportation. Centuries of colonialism have left the UK with a range of citizenship classifications, not all of which have permitted long-term residence, but there was no question that the members of this group were either British citizens or had the right to permanent residency. Nevertheless, they were caught in a series of measures designed to exclude undocumented migrants from the labor market, private rental accommodations, and health services. The policy was introduced in 2012 by then-Home Secretary Theresa May (who coined the term "hostile environment"); the intention was to deny people the basics for a tolerable life in order to pressure them to "self-deport." It became evident that the hostile environment was not confined to the 50,000 or so members of the Windrush generation, but affected ethnic minorities more generally. Maya Goodfellow' s passionate and compelling book, Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats, examines the deep historical roots of this scandal. She illustrates the cruelty of immigration controls and enforcement, the slow torment of endless waiting for cases to be resolved or visas to be extended, the horrors of deportation and separation, the deaths at sea and in deten
Multiculturalism, Liberalism and the Burden of Assimilation
2012
The origins of this book lie in the confusion of its author. Since this is a thesis on how to respond politically to cultural diversity, it may be helpful to the curious reader to know what this confusion is. My interest in such matters was sparked by personal experience. Growing up as an ethnic Greek in Greece in the 1970s, I cannot say that I experienced unequal opportunities due to my ethnic background. However, growing up as a female person in the Greek society of that time I soon came to realize that I was not supposed to receive the same opportunities as male persons. This struck me as deeply unfair because I could not, and I still cannot, understand why boys are worth more opportunities than girls just because they are boys. So I migrated to the Netherlands in search of equal opportunity. After some years I ended up in Sweden, following my heart this time, where I found myself confronted with a number of discourses of culture and ethnicity. According to some people, I was supposed to suffer endlessly because I missed my original context of culture. Others, mostly immigrants, informed me that my ethnic background once and for all was going to block my access to diverse opportunities in the new country. Some described people like me as victims of local assimilationist policies. Others suggested that I, being an immigrant, had a duty to totally assimilate into the Swedish society. To make things even more confusing, the Swedish media often reminded me that I had to view myself as a passive victim of racist societal structures that were too powerful to be challenged by individuals like me. I thus found myself confused, as I was told that the fact that I could be classified as an immigrant and a member of an ethnic minority was negatively influencing my future prospects in the society to which I had moved. I felt trapped. On the one hand, the discourses of importance of cultural identity informed me that the key to my future prospects was to be found in the Greek society. On the other hand, experience advised me that this was not the case. What was the right thing to do? What could I reasonably expect from the Swedish society? What did people living in this society owe me? And what did I owe them?